Ghosts of July (Shamans of the Divide, Book 1)

Chapter Six

"Where the hell did you go?" He was striding right for me. I hadn't noticed Renn's motorcycle parked in front of my car and at until that exact moment, I was almost wishing he was the scary shadow figure I first took him to be.

He came to stop right in front of me so I side stepped him and walked to the front steps.

"I've been all over this stupid town looking for you. You just—wait, are you crying?" He stopped mid-rant and squinted at me in the failing light. "You're crying. What happened?"

I thought about sitting down on the steps to talk to Renn, but we didn't have a functioning porch light, so I invited him in.

He followed me in and sat on Nana's velvet nightmare of a couch while I locked the door and flipped on the lights on the first floor. I picked up the phone and called the diner. Lou answered.

"She's working the register tonight," Lou shouted into the phone. I've never heard his normal speaking voice. Ever. "Lem's got the runs so he couldn't make it. She's gonna stay the night here, I'm guessing. I'll let her know you checked in."

I winced at the information overload and thanked Lou before hanging up.

Renn followed me into the kitchen and sat on one of the vinyl-covered diner chairs Nana had smuggled home a few decades ago. To his credit, he did look worried. His dark hair was fabulously disheveled and out of its normal ponytail. It hung nearly to his shoulders and with the shaved sides, it hung to one side and almost covered his right eye.

"What happened? Why were you crying?" He finally asked when I pulled out a couple cans of soda and pushed one in front of him. I plopped down in the seat next to him.

"I hate the dark."

He frowned.

"You're crying because you hate the dark?" He wasn't exactly judging me, but he sounded skeptical.

I laughed at my lame attempt to lie and Renn actually cracked a smile. It was a new sort of smile. I was used to him laughing at me or something silly I'd said. But this—this was a genuine, warm smile at me. My skin buzzed with electricity.

"It's nothing," I said. "I just had a couple of crappy phone calls in about four minutes."

Renn narrowed his brown eyes at me for a split second to take in what I'd just said. I think he was on the verge of asking for more details before changing course at the last second.

"Why'd you disappear from the coffee shop?"

If I wasn't mistaken, it seemed like he was a little worried about me. He was out looking for me. I let the truth sink in and I'm not going to lie, I reveled in it a little bit. Taylor couldn't hang up the phone fast enough when I tried to explain a tiny part of what had been happening to me. And Renn, well, he'd probably caught a whole lot of hell from his girlfriend and he'd still remembered that I was out walking home by myself.

"I saw Hannah reading you the riot act. I felt like I'd just been caught doing something dirty," I said. "Those girls hate me enough for no reason. I can't imagine how crappy they could make my last semester here if they had a reason. She was pissed, wasn't she?"

Renn nodded.

"She was pissed. Yes."

"It didn't help that you sped past her and her friends at the burger place with a girl on the back of your bike, did it?"

He shrugged.

"Saw that, didn't you? She's—complicated," he struggled to find the right word. I could have supplied a few for him but I bit my tongue.